Israel Proposes 'Evacuation' of Gaza, with Western Countries as Likely Destination

As Trump suggests taking over Gaza, serious questions about where its inhabitants might go arise: Israel wants them to go to Europe, and here's how they'll do that

As you may have heard, recently Benjamin Netanyahoo went to the swamp master and pondered his next steps, with Mr. Trump, reverting for once to his earlier self, the property-developer, noted that ‘the US will take-over Gaza’.

I don’t want to talk about that—but what this statement did in, first, Israeli legacy media and, second, what the Norwegians said about it afterwards.

The reason is simple: if the US takes over Gaza and turns it into a ‘Riviera’ (Trump), what happens to the 1.7-1.8m Palestinian inhabitants? (Note that the Palestinian authorities—whatever their word may be worth—registered some 2.3m Gazans in 2023, as Moon of Alabama has helpfully compiled.) We’ll also need to set aside the fact that Lebanon, of all places, used to be known by a very much analogous moniker after World War 2.

Hence, the question is simple: if these 1.7-1.8m Gazans won’t become, you know, menial labour on the future US military camp—think Camp Bondsteel—and its quite certainly envisioned high-rise skyline reminiscent of Miami, such as Uber Eats (both kosher and ‘regular’ cuisine will be available, I presume), frying burger paddies at Micky D’s, and trimming lawns of military personnel, well, where would they go to?

Defence Minister Katz to Gazans: ‘leave to various places around the world’

Thankfully, the Times of Israel provides a few insights here, and I shall cite a few pertinent paragraphs and statements from their recent coverage (archived; emphases and [snark] mine):

Defense Minister Israel Katz has ordered the IDF to prepare a plan to enable Gazans to leave the Strip voluntarily, Katz’s office says.

Katz is quoted as welcoming Trump’s ‘courageous plan, which could enable a wide swath of the population in Gaza to leave to various places around the world.’

Katz also says: ‘Hamas used Gaza residents as human shields and built terror infrastructure in the heart of the population, and is now holding them hostage, extorting money from them by use of humanitarian aid, and preventing them from leaving Gaza.’

He says he has ordered the military to ready a plan by which any resident who wants it can emigrate to any place that agrees to absorb them.

The pertinent part here isn’t IDF soldiers assisting those ‘who wants it’ to ‘emigrate’, but where would Gazans go? Thankfully, Mr. Katz also spoke to that:

Katz specifically mentions potential destinations such as Spain, Ireland, Norway and other countries that have leveled ‘false accusations’ regarding Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, arguing that if these nations refuse to accept Palestinians, ‘their hypocrisy will be exposed’. [I suppose that Mr. Katz is technically correct about the hypocrisy here].

He also mentions Canada, which has ‘an organized immigration program’ and has ‘previously voiced a willingness to absorb Gazan residents’.

The plan would provide for exit through land crossings [i.e., push the Gazans into Egypt, which Cairo is loath to permit], as well as ‘special arrangements’ for departure via maritime and aerial routes [i.e., last chopper out of Saigon, but for 1.7-1.8m people, all facilitated by the IDF and done by the US, which is, realistically, the only organisation that could perform such a mission].

‘Gaza’s residents should be allowed the freedom to exit and emigrate, as is the practice anywhere around the world’, Katz argues [they would simply not enjoy the freedom to choose where to go as most lack passports and visas, hence they may be able to ‘emigrate’ but they would then be in limbo].

No Papers, No Entry

And this is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak, because if you don’t have a passport and relevant papers (visas), even if you’re able to leave one place, you cannot get into any other place.

At this point, I shall briefly mention the MS St Louis, a German steamer, that in 1939 did the following (via Wikipedia):

In 1939, during the build-up to World War II, the St. Louis carried more than 900 Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany intending to escape antisemitic persecution. The refugees first tried to disembark in Cuba but were denied permission to land. After Cuba, the captain, Gustav Schröder, went to the United States and Canada, trying to find a nation to take the Jews in, but both nations refused…These events, also known as the ‘Voyage of the Damned’, have inspired film, opera, and fiction.

Here’s a piece about this event from the Smithsonian Mag from 2015, which notes that ‘government officials from the State Department to the FBI to President Franklin Roosevelt himself argued that refugees posed a serious threat to national security’.

Now, I’m categorically not saying these are the same things; what I am inferring is a strange likeness of these events; I also know this is a bad way of comparing things, hence I’ll offer you another episode from around the same time that is perhaps more spot-on about what I think will happen to Gazans who will ‘leave the Strip voluntarily’ (via the Leo Baeck Institute):

The annexation [sic] of Austria by Nazi Germany in March 1938 had brought an abrupt end to 1,000 years of Jewish life in the Burgenland region, Austria’s easternmost state. The expulsion of the small Jewish population, carried out by the SS, local Nazi officials, and civilian collaborators, commenced immediately. This article by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports on the League of Nations’ intervention on behalf of 56 expellees who had ended up in ‘no man’s land’ in the border area between Austria and Yugoslavia.

They ‘ended up’ in the legal limbo known as neither one or the other country—because (a) their Austrian passports ceased to be valid after the Anschluss of Austria; (b) they were pushed over the border into ‘no man’s land’; and (c) the country on the other side of said ‘no man’s land’ didn’t let them in for reasons that betray both anti-semitism and legalistic claims of the expellees not having valid papers.

As Inside Story reported in 2021 (doing a bit of virtue-signalling about the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border in the present), essentially the same MO was behind larger expulsions of Jews from other parts of Germany: their passports were cancelled, they were pushed across the German border into the no-man’s land, and the country on the other side of that border refused to permit entry:

Thousands of them, variously referred to as deportees or refugees, remained stuck in Zbąszyń, a town of fewer than 5000 people ill-equipped to handle such a large number of arrivals. Some were put up in barns and stables, others slept in open fields. A month after the expulsions, the New York Times correspondent observed their ‘strange, comfortless existence at Poland’s front gate and Germany’s back door — unable to move in either direction.’

I submit to you that this is the fate of Gazans who ‘leave voluntarily’.

Note that Mr. Katz has pointed at Norway, among others, and he did so for the following—very obvious—reason:

Norway, Spain, Ireland to 'Recognise Palestine'

And this brings us to how the above developments were covered by Norwegian legacy media. ‘Enjoy’ (/sarcasm) my translation below.

---

Israel: Palestinians can ‘Emigrate’—Points to Norway

Israel wants the military to prepare a plan for the Palestinians to leave Gaza, with Norway as a possible recipient country. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that Palestine is the homeland of the Palestinians.

By Fathia Mahmoud Farah and Einar Torkelsen, NRK, 6 Feb. 2025 [source]

InFact conducted a population survey on behalf of Rebil on Wednesday 8 January 2025. The sample was 1,016 people over the age of 18, from both genders and across geographies. The margin of error was +/- 2.4 - 3.0%.

Defence Minister Israel Katz believes that an ‘emigration scheme’ could solve parts of the conflict in the region.

He states that the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) will draw up a plan for Palestinians to ‘emigrate’ to willing recipient countries.

Israeli media such as Times of Israel and Haaretz report this.

He specifically mentions Norway, Spain, and Ireland as potential recipient countries.

Katz believes it is hypocritical if they do not accept Palestinian refugees.

‘Doesn’t make much of an impression’

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre does not take the statement seriously:

‘I think it’s a diversionary manoeuvre. He has no right to intervene and send Palestinians out of the area where they belong,’ he told NTB.

According to Støre, the idea that Norway has a special obligation to accept Palestinians from the Gaza Strip is a meaningless claim:

It may be a statement from a foreign [sic; Israel Katz is defence (sic) minister] minister in a right-wing orientated government. We take note of it, but it doesn’t make much of an impression on me.

State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Andreas Kravik, states:

Palestine is the homeland of the Palestinians. The Palestinian people have a fundamental, independent right to self-determination and a state of their own.

He points out that this was the basis for the UN partition plan in 1947, when Israel was recognised by Norway and several other countries in 1949, and that it has been confirmed in several UN resolutions and by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) [note that it is always said that it was Israel which accepted this settlement, not the Arabs/Palestinians; yet, given the notorious land grabs and ongoing dispossession of them by Israel since esp. the Oslo Accords of the early 1990s, I suppose that Norway would have a kind of moral obligation to do something about whatever is going on].

‘The forced transfer of the civilian population in occupied territories to other countries is prohibited under international law’, says Kravik [of course it is, which is why Mr. Katz said ‘voluntary’ (whatever he means by that), but I suppose Mr. Kravik has both evidence and will bring, on behalf of Norway, a suit in the International Criminal Court and use the UN to pillory Israel, right? This is all gaslighting galore for everyone, which is why the piece also contains the following section].

Several Politicians in Norway Have Reacted.

Deputy leader of Venstre [the Liberal Party], Abid Raja, believes that Israel’s proposal that Palestinians should leave Gaza is completely unacceptable:

This has no place anywhere. Gaza belongs to the Palestinians, and any suggestion of forced displacement is completely unacceptable [of course it is, which is why Mr. Katz said ‘voluntary’ (and, yes, I’m aware that saying something isn’t the same as whatever is said being true)]

Bjørnar Moxnes (R [Rødt, i.e., Norway’s small Communist Party]) has sent a written question to the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Espen Barth Eide, about how the government is reacting to Donald Trump’s statement that the USA could take over Gaza [note the supreme irony here as Mr. Moxnes resigned as party chair not long ago as he, the super-virtue-signalling Commie stole a pair of expensive sunglasses and couldn’t maintain the party chairmanship, as reported by Politico, among others (‘yes, really’)].

[Norway’s Greens] MDG’s Une Bastholm also warns of the consequences of such statements [note that none of these politicos™ categorically said no].

Pointing to Other European Countries to accept Palestinians

Katz’s statements come after President Donald Trump’s statements to forcibly relocate Palestinians and that his country should take over the Gaza Strip [so we learn, once again, that taking over foreign countries by force is bad™ and illegal™, if you’re Russia, but fine and dandy if you’re Israel or the US].

The countries [Katz] points to have all recognised Palestine as a state [this is the original of my above-linked piece, which offers a translation of it].

Katz also claims that these countries have made false accusations about the country’s warfare [I’ll merely point to Winston Churchill here: ‘In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.’]

Spain’s Minister of Foreign Affairs José Manuel Albares rejects the proposal from Israel’s Minister of Defence, Reuters reports.

NRK has asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to comment on the Israeli Defence Minister’s statements, but has not yet received a reply.

Researcher: Gaza has been made Unliveable [orig. uleveleg] to push the Palestinians Out

Senior researcher at PRIO [the wonderfully-named ‘Peace Research Institute Oslo’], Jørgen Jensehaugen, believes that the proposal is in reality a forced eviction that is packaged to look humanitarian [perhaps someone should explain to Mr. Jensehaugen that making such comments smacks of the stuff Hitler and his ilk said when they were expelling their fellow Jewish citizens]:

It is obvious that this is not actually voluntary. When Israel makes an area unliveable and then sends a clear political signal that they want people to leave, this is just a wrapping of displacement. [if true, that would be actionable under the UN Charter]

He emphasises that it is Israel’s warfare that has made Gaza unliveable.

According to Jensehaugen, Israel has since the start of the war wanted the Palestinians to leave Gaza, first to Egypt, now to other countries [which war? the current one or literally every such conflict since, well, actually before 1948?]:

When we see this in the context of Donald Trump’s statement that the population of Gaza should be evacuated, it is clear that this is an attempt at ethnic cleansing [again, if you believe this to be the case, lobby the Norwegian gov’t to assemble a coalition to act against the alleged perpetrator under the UN Charter].

He points out that Norway has accepted Palestinians for medical treatment, but believes that Norway will not support Israel’s proposal for a massive expulsion:

In the short term, I fear that this could lead to the next phase of the ceasefire not materialising. In the longer term, we can already see that Katz is pushing to make further expulsions possible.

The researcher believes that this is reminiscent of the forced relocation of more than 700,000 Palestinians in 1948:

For the Palestinians, it is clear that this is an attempt to repeat what happened in 1948. They see this as a new ‘Nakba’, an attempt to empty Palestinian territories of Palestinians.

Jensehaugen believes Trump’s plan is unrealistic [who would’ve thought that].

Nevertheless, he fears that the statement could act as a green light for the most extreme forces in Israel [a broken clock is right on time, too, at least twice a day].

---

Bottom Lines

Now you know what’s going on here in Norway with respect to what I call the limits of virtue-signalling, such as the basically meaningless recognition of Palestine.

In international relations, whatever one wishes to think of it, there’s but one rule—and, incidentally, it’s the same rule that governs school yards during recess: if you cannot back up your posture by force, you’re a wimp and will end up taking a beating.

This is the most likely outcome for the people of Gaza: they will be ‘evacuated’, ‘leave voluntarily’, or whatever, which is a question for message control and media spin.

I think that Egypt won’t budge as easily, and I perceive the US leadership to know pushing Cairo too hard will result in ‘instability’.

Hence, the more likely option in this is to go for the softer targets, i.e., other Western countries, and this will be done for two reasons:

1. Logistically, the US empire of military bases provides an easy way out of the no passports, no visas issue as some Gazans may just be put on aircraft (very expensive, not a mass expulsion ‘solution’), flown to any US airbase across NATO, given a couple of euros each, and pushed out the base gates.

   I don’t know if these people will be greeted with great enthusiasm by their ‘new’ neighbours, but I suppose a few virtue-signalling ‘refugees welcome’ placards will be seen, perhaps a written gov’t statement decrying the paperless new arrivals will be issued, but that’s a quick-and-easy way out of this ‘dilemma™’—for both the US-Israeli side and the recipients in the West. Once whatever token resistance offered is overcome, the US will hire some ocean liners and ferry the rest of Gazans to European ports.

2. In terms of its medium-term propaganda value, doing so is the way to go for two reasons: on the one hand, it allows the US-Israeli side to claim, via their media control, both the moral high ground (term that has lost essentially all meaning in this context) for offering their ‘humanitarian™’ assistance to avoid a tragedy—and it allows esp. the Israeli side to badger European countries that refuse to accept anyone by invoking ‘long-standing anti-semitism’, of course there will be further allegations of ‘Nazism’ and the like, too.

Hence, given these two beneficial agit-prop aspects—the weaponisation of both the ‘responsibility to protect™’ (a shady neocon scheme now incorporated into the UN Charter) and allegations of ‘anti-semitism™’ if Western countries refuse to admit any Moslem Gazans, which, on top of everything else, would be supremely ironic, isn’t it?

If I’m about right, it’s a win-win for both the US and Israel, and a lose-lose for both Gazans and Western countries forced to admit the former.

I think this is the most logical outcome, which will, of course, massively increase, nay, turbo-charge, the many problems mass migration of mainly Moslem people into Western countries has already caused.

Neither the US nor Israel care about this, as this is a feature and not a bug.

3. Finally, there’s also another qualitative aspect as such a ‘refugee’ flotilla in search of a new home in Europe mimics almost to the proverbial dot of the i, the story-line imagined in Jean Raspail’s 1973 novel The Camp of Saints, which, according to Wikipedia, ‘depicts the destruction of Western civilization through Third World mass immigration to France and the Western world’.

   Sure, the particulars are a bit different here and there, but my main contention is that this ‘flotilla scenario’ addresses the one remaining conundrum—which is the anticipated ‘right-wing™’ backlash in those countries forced to receive Gazans: it’ll allow these politicos™ on ‘the right™’ to point to Raspail’s novel, thus sensationalising it and rising in the polls while, in the end (and aided by an ‘anti-right™’ ‘national consensus’ or ‘unity gov’t™’) bringing about its eventual conclusion: the arrival of the flotilla and the resigned demise of the West.

I so wish I’m wrong about this, but given these considerations—and remember: this is what’s publicly shared and disseminated (with a purpose) by these actors—I fail to see any other outcome here.

While I think the dispersal of 1.7-1.8m Gazans across several Western countries might, technically, be manageable in technical terms, I doubt it’ll end there. If the cleansing of Gaza of its inhabitants happens along the outlined avenues, it’ll merely provide the incentive to double and triple own on this path.

Before too long, the 1.7-1.8m. Gazans will be followed by their fellow Palestinians from the West Bank, southern Lebanon, and parts of what used to be Syria.

Guess where these people shall be headed.